Monster Champion Feedback

[redoubt]

Last time I reply to you directly cause this is becoming boring.

As you admit 6k and 4k incoming damage is inside terminal delirium in special parts of the quest where you are extremely vulnerable to melee hits from monsters. The last one you say is from another quest and is a 2,192 points of slash damage.
I've seen raid bosses do 3000ish damage on party members. Specifically in fire on thunder peaks and Mark of death you can see raid bosses crit for way more than your 2000 damage which is by the way a huge amount for a trash monster but still lower than raid bosses.

Which attacks and are they telegraphed in a useful way?

Are you talking about the dragon throwing fireballs (which sadly are gone now)? You got the huge marker on the ground to tell you it was coming. Move or you will be hit for big numbers. Same happens with airships in 3BC. Mindflayers do a wind up before they suck your brains. The medusas give a tell and then you can see the eye beams to know you need to be not looking at their face or you're gonna die. I have zero issue with someone getting one-shot dead in these situations.

When Kai-teng says, Hmmm, maybe my vorpal blade... get ready for it, you've been warned. If you're head get lopped off after that its your fault for not reacting.

A single regular attack of damage in the multiple thousands range has no place in the game. Even at 200prr a 2000 pt hit is 667 points of damage. And that's on a tank. Most tanks are in the 1000-1200hp range. You get to be hit twice at that rate before you die. I think that is too high.

I spent last night healing. Just healing. I did it so I could try some stuff and also so I could sit back and watch some very good players do their thing in EE palace of stone. The damage these guys were taking was staggering. I was not waiting for hp to get below a certain threshold. Well I sorta was... if it wasn't full, I set some sort of heal. Nothing short of being completely filled up worked. I saw guys lose 1000+ instantly, a LOT. These were good players who were also trying to self heal while I stood back and healed full time. It was challenging. You can pretend that the damage output of the mobs is not high, but you will just be pretending.

All that said, I'm not asking for EE to be reduced at all. No. EE doesn't need to be reduced any more. But, I still want to see smarter champion design. Make them deadly, but drop the out of nowhere one-shot attacks. Give them special attacks that have a tell. Make them move away now (or maybe shield block now) or die situations. That's fine. But bypassing ALL 215% of my fort and then critting me for a couple grand on a regular attack, that part can go.

[redoubt]

Sorry, disagree. Low level quests on Elite are already too easy for TRs. At least make it fun for those who multi-TR.

True.

We get prepared for end bosses. We know they are there and what to do to be ready for them. We get the right gear, weapons, spells etc. Then, because we are prepared, we generally go win.

The champion system has a lot of potential due to the unknown. The original spawn rate, was not really unknown questing though. You KNEW you would have 3-4 champs in every fight. Bah.

I'd still like to see a set up where you don't see champions very often, but when you do, you stop. You think about what you are about to face. You might even, wait for it, actually wait while a caster goes backward (gasp!) to a shrine to top off or change a spell. A little bit like having the Marut drop down in VON3 to the room with the earth eles instead of walking by. You'd be like, "holy smoke!" What now? Where did I put my marut beater? ****, I didn't shrine, I need to go back for more magic missile power. Nuts, he just put a lightning damage buff on all the earth elementals! Quick pass at pro electric! Anyone need sonic? Never mind, I'm passing out sonic! Oh no! The cleric is actually shrining! MEDIC!!!!

[Thlargir]

Champions wasn't a particularly good idea. Trying to make them the solution is a recipe for fail.

I beg to differ. The concept of Champions (added variable difficulty) is a superb idea. It makes content fresh on every run and (at least the first incarnation) gave a certain puckering effect into the bargain.

This comment applies only to heroic elite, as that is all I have run since their introduction.

[madmaxhunter]

Ran EE PC last night with two guildies. There were two deaths (the two guildies haha) and completion. The champs added the right amount of difficulty to the quest. As long as they don't have the one shot ability, I'm fine with the champions... and looking forward to what gets added to them, i.e.unique treasure drops, bonus exp, whatever the Devs decide on.

[RD2play]

Separating out Champion settings on Heroic and Epic levels is something we may consider for the future, but will take additional development time if we pursue this path.

Too bad! as I posted before I think the relative difficulty of EH should be more in line with HE so you can have EE make another step in difficulty. or else maybe when we are at the 30 lvl cap we could get the return of "true epics" like they were back when the cap was 20, one difficulty to rule them all, where one does not step into lightly. maybe call it CR31! or Mythic quests....

back to the champions still love them! and I was thinking, maybe the people who get one shotted?!? can post their build/gear set-up. Because, you know, maybe you shouldn't have been in Elite anyway ??? for me If my char cant handle elite either group up or drop to hard plenty XP to cap anyway even without the BB.

[octaviun_serlone]

Champions! I guess there's got to be something in every update that the Zergers, Elitests, Exploiters and all around self-proclaimed heros of DDO need to cry about. So you got 1-hitted, Guess you need to get better gear or better yet play smarter.

OK! OK! I'll be good.... I've been playing for sometime now and when I started the game was Fun; It was a challange. Made you rely on your party members, your guildies for insight..."What are you using? oh man you really need to look for this. It will really help out" or to actually play as a group and work together. unlike now where some bozo runs ahead of the party to be the hero while the rest of the group deals with what the bozo left. Sure the bozo is a multi TR with the uberest gear one could have while the newb is left back wondering what the @#$%. "My buddy wants me to join DDO? @#$% that". It would be nice that the bozo stop and think about when they started. sure not everything may have been handed to them but I'm sure a few pointer did come their way. New players are needed to improve DDO.

The game HAS gone soft specifically for those doing TR's, I have a few and in alot of the quest...it's the same ole grind, rinse ,repeat and do it again. The Champions are a great addition and would not change them at all. I like the challange that they hand out, in Heroic and Epic content. I'm on yet another TR currently going through Heroics, bouncing back for somemEpics occasionally. We've been surprised on how hard the champions can hit, but it never fails we work togehter and take them down. It's nice not knowing what mess will come up in the quests now. the anticipation of what to expect is nice and keeps me waiting for more.

[Sehenry03]

I loved the champions being added but add me to the "lets go back to how they were" group.

As it stands my lvl 18 Wizard Ziffin ran all the vale quests on HE except Running with the Devils. Yes I found a few champions...yes some had a few more hp's...yes some did more damage...no my time for completion stayed approx. the same. They are back to being no challenge again and they roll over and die just as easy as normal quest mobs.

Turbine...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take a stand on Elite quests. Put your champions back to how they were or close. Sure reduce damage a little so they don't one shot (not necessary) and maybe reduce HP's on some (again not necessary). Elite should not be for everyone that wants favor/TP's. It SHOULD be for elite players with elite gear. Pretty sure that's why you called it Elite. You didn't call it "slightly above average" or "harder then casual" you called it ELITE. Make it Elite.

Make Hard harder for those that say Normal is to easy. Lower Champions like you already have for Hard and leave it for them but for Elite PLEASE make it Elite again. Make Elite favor and Elite TP's and Elite XP actually something that takes Elite game play. I would play some on Elite and some on Hard.

As to the people saying champions are to random and they should make the special abilities for them easier to figure out or even show them on a buff bar or something...sure for hard difficulties I am all for it. For Elite that PLEASE make special attacks totally random. Make it so players can NOT preplan for a dungeon on elite. Jeebers Elite difficulty and people want to know what mobs are going to be able to do? Wow real exciting. I want that Fire Elemental to hit me with Polar Ray and catch my fire shield off guard. I want that Iron Golem to be healed by lightning now instead of fire. Randomness. Chaos. Stop making it so EVERY dungeon is predictable. Make every time you enter a new experience. Velah now has random breath attacks!!! Yes plz!!!

Right now pretty much every quest in the game is easy to gear for and be ready for. Every MMO is like that and to me that's why it gets boring. You know it before you enter. Raids...sure leave them since they are meant to be super tough. Elite quests?? Come on lets make them Elite again.

Even with champions you have 4 difficulties now:

[ ] Casual
[ ] Normal
[ ] Hard (actually normal plus champions that are almost like normal mobs)
[ ] Elite (actually just a little above normal plus a few more champions that are easy to kill again)

And before people call me an elitist I am far from it. Will I be running every quest on Elite? Hell no. Will I be trying to gear my toons up for it? Absolutely. I help a LOT of new players in the game. I have multiple posts asking new players to send me tells if I can group with them or help with gear. I am an above average player with above average gear but nothing spectacular. I run a lot of EE quests and I run even more EH quests when I solo. With my guild it is always EE regardless of champions or not.

I won't refer to the olden days but this game has become Hello Kitty and now people feel everyone should be able to run Elite.

I know a dev posted somewhere that they didn't expect new players to run Hard or Elite...could a Dev say if they think 80% of the gaming population should be able to solo Elite? If it is something the Dev's think should happen then fine that's how it should be...BUT if a Dev is willing to get on and actually say they feel Elite should only be for 10-20% of the people with the best gear then lets get BACK to that. Its been way to long that EVERYONE is running Elite solo. Lets fix this now and let people that want to quit move on. The game shouldn't be like that nor was it designed for that.

Ok let the flaming begin!!!!

[GeneralDiomedes]

Why, they existed back when content was much harder than it is now. If anything I'd think they'd be happy. I mean, what's the point of permadeath when it's impossible to die?

Two words:

one shot

[EllisDee37]

I feel sorry for the Permadeath guilds, if they are still around.

Why, they existed back when content was much harder than it is now. If anything I'd think they'd be happy. I mean, what's the point of permadeath when it's impossible to die?

Two words:

one shot

I've seen three self-identified perma-death players voice their opinion in this thread.

The first rage-quit, or threatened to.

The second squee'd in delight at how awesome champions are for perma-death, since the whole point of perma-death is that there needs to be an actual chance to die, and pre-U24 the game had gotten too easy to make perma-death a meaningful playstyle.

The third said that they liked the champions because they made perma-death fun again.

[Sehenry03]

Two words:

one shot

As much as people have talked about being 1 shot...it is still very uncommon. Every new group I join in game I always ask what people think of champions and most aren't bothered by them. Literally a couple people mentioned being 1 shotted and each time the rest of the group was surprised it was happening.

So yes you can be 1 shot...but then again I was 1 shotted at times in EE content before champions so...who cares?

[Qhualor]

As much as people have talked about being 1 shot...it is still very uncommon. Every new group I join in game I always ask what people think of champions and most aren't bothered by them. Literally a couple people mentioned being 1 shotted and each time the rest of the group was surprised it was happening.

So yes you can be 1 shot...but then again I was 1 shotted at times in EE content before champions so...who cares?

I think its more because your hp bar reads -3000 rather than -500. to me, dead is dead. one Champion hit me with 630 hp in EE Battle for Eveningstar from ~500 to 4 hp and that was the closest to being one shotted I had come. if I died from a Champion it was normally 2-3 hits.

[Sehenry03]

I think its more because your hp bar reads -3000 rather than -500. to me, dead is dead. one Champion hit me with 630 hp in EE Battle for Eveningstar from ~500 to 4 hp and that was the closest to being one shotted I had come. if I died from a Champion it was normally 2-3 hits.

You are having the same experience with champions I am.

What I was basically saying is that everyone is overblowing the 1 shot thing. A few people mention it happening then everyone that hates champions jumps on the band wagon and talks about how bad it is.

Really? A few isolated incidents and most of them are from an EXTREME DUNGEON. Yes I am sure some are happening elsewhere but people need to ONLY speak on whats happening to them not hearsay they read elsewhere.

[Claver]

You should differentiate by level. Low level quests on elite should have few champions, on higher levels there should be more.

Agreed…

Maybe something like this for Hard

2% Lvs 1-5
4% Lvs 6-10
6% Lvs 11 - 15 (Current Hard Setting)
8% Lvs 16 - 20
10%Lvs 21 - 25
12% Lvs 26 - 30 (Prenerf levels)

Double the % values for Elite in those level ranges

[Oliphant]

I very much like the idea of champions. However, getting a chance to play a little more, I found champions were often a bigger factor than the quest design details. There's a danger o overtaking the quest itself in importance. This can end up feeling even more vanilla than repeating content because it starts to feel the same neutralizing and killing champions so frequently. Instead of feeling like I'm just repeating the same hundreds of quest, I'm always re-fighting "the champion" again, with the same basic drill, kill the champion(s). What all this proves to me is the devs can change the difficulty of quests easily by using the buff mechanic, that's pretty cool to know.

[phillymiket]

I very much like the idea of champions. However, getting a chance to play a little more, I found champions were often a bigger factor than the quest design details. There's a danger o overtaking the quest itself in importance. This can end up feeling even more vanilla than repeating content because it starts to feel the same neutralizing and killing champions so frequently. Instead of feeling like I'm just repeating the same hundreds of quest, I'm always re-fighting "the champion" again, with the same basic drill, kill the champion(s). What all this proves to me is the devs can change the difficulty of quests easily by using the buff mechanic, that's pretty cool to know.

Yes!

That's it.

I've been trying to put my finger on why Champions just seem like such a hollow "fix" for balance - and you hit the nail on the head for me.

The quest is decoration, in a way, if the Champions are the biggest threat.

The main objective of every single quest, if Champions are the toughest thing in them, is to Defeat the Champions!

The Boss is simply who guards the last chest and makes the XP arrive - not the primary threat.

I still personally like Champions, but would much, much rather have the Devs adjust/add difficulty levels so quests naturally challenged the party with their original designers intended enemies rather than having every quest rely on a "Champion crutch" to prop them up against today's players.

[Robai]

My feedback:
- Orange Champs got very poor, they very rarely drop a chest now

Yesterday killed 14 Orange named, 8 of them were Champs and only one had a chest.
This is sad news, I'm no longed exited about champs.

[Tilomere]

Champions should do more damage to legends and TRs.

Lets say champions hit Z% harder. This % harder should increase X% per past life the target has for melee and ranged, and Y% for spells and cap out. This will provide scaling difficulty to match various players power and gear accumulation. This will prevent first life characters from being 1 shot, and provide both first life and legends with appropriate challenge at the same time, while grouped in the same dungeon.

Hmm, maybe the entire dungeon should scale damage higher against legends and TRs instead.

[Robai]

Had more thoughts about this.

There are different opinions in the monster champions feedback since players play different classes.

Players who ask more difficulty play toons that very rarely get hits since they:
- kill monsters at a distance (mobs not immune to any of these attacks)
- or can reliably CC
- or kill monsters fast (mobs have too low hp)

For these players increasing damage of mobs won't make any difference, but they would like mobs to be more dangerous (hit harder) so that they would be the saviors of the party, i.e. fun to play for them (less fun for others).

So how Devs should increase game difficulty?
Immunities is the a way to do this imo!

I don't mind other ways too, but the mentioned players should be also affected.

[Jeromio]

In my opinion, with increased challenge, there should be increased reward.

Facts:
Currently there is sometimes some additional trash loot from some champions. Personally, I think this is quite a bad reward.
There is also some people who think it's fun with the increased challenge, and some people hate it.
Some peeps wants the initial challenge level of the champions (as originally released), others wants them gone completely.
We know that Turbine can dynamically change the difficulty levels on things like spawn rate, damage increase etc etc.

Suggested solution:
At quest start, at quest entry screen, have a combo-box available that lets the group leader select the difficulty of the champions from a range from 0 to 100. 0 would mean no champions appearing at all, 20 could be as currently working, 40 could be as initially released, and the rest up to 100 scaled accordingly. The scale is just an example, and would probably have to be adjusted, but highest level should mean virtually impossible to complete.
Awards: award according to the selected scale, e.g. 0 would mean no reward, 20 would mean some trash loot as today, 50 = moar xp bonus at quest completion etc etc (just examples to explain the idea).

Result:
This solution would solve most problems people are currently compaining about.
Casual players hating the champions can play without them.
Players who enjoys the additional challenge can ramp it up to as much as they can handle.
The greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
It will probably encourage grouping when people who wants extra xp bonus can make it a bit easier on a higher difficulty by bringing friends along.

[Robai]

In my opinion, with increased challenge, there should be increased reward.

Facts:
Currently there is sometimes some additional trash loot from some champions. Personally, I think this is quite a bad reward.
There is also some people who think it's fun with the increased challenge, and some people hate it.
Some peeps wants the initial challenge level of the champions (as originally released), others wants them gone completely.
We know that Turbine can dynamically change the difficulty levels on things like spawn rate, damage increase etc etc.

Suggested solution:
At quest start, at quest entry screen, have a combo-box available that lets the group leader select the difficulty of the champions from a range from 0 to 100. 0 would mean no champions appearing at all, 20 could be as currently working, 40 could be as initially released, and the rest up to 100 scaled accordingly. The scale is just an example, and would probably have to be adjusted, but highest level should mean virtually impossible to complete.
Awards: award according to the selected scale, e.g. 0 would mean no reward, 20 would mean some trash loot as today, 50 = moar xp bonus at quest completion etc etc (just examples to explain the idea).

Result:
This solution would solve most problems people are currently compaining about.
Casual players hating the champions can play without them.
Players who enjoys the additional challenge can ramp it up to as much as they can handle.
The greater the challenge, the greater the reward.
It will probably encourage grouping when people who wants extra xp bonus can make it a bit easier on a higher difficulty by bringing friends along.

Good thoughts, but this will promote only those players who can kill mobs without getting hits.
I mean for those players there is no difference: all champs on no champs.
So those players will get a reward without increased difficulty.